Feeding the Gospel, Part III: Even more on an admittedly average church’s podcasting experience

By Bob Christenson

One of the hardest parts for St. Matthew (the Lutheran church in Walled Lake, Mich., that is using increasingly popular audio technology to spread the gospel via RSS and the Internet) is making its podcast production consistent. It sounds silly, but the big hang-up is usually the delivery of the recorded audio from the sound-booth team to the post-production guy. Sometimes the CD gets to him on Sunday, sometimes Monday and sometimes never. So, let’s think of an efficient way to deliver that recorded audio to the post production team.

Making Delivery Easy

In an ideal world, we’d deliver the files over the Internet. The Sunday morning team would finish the recording and save that audio project file – along with all related files – onto a Web server that could be accessed by the post-production team from another location. Sure, it takes a little setup, but once it’s going, it’s very convenient. This method means that there’s no “hand over” that must be planned. The audio files are on a server waiting to be edited immediately after the recording is finished. Whenever the post-production team sits down to work, they can download the files and get to work immediately.

Setting up the Feed

In last month’s article, we found that the group at St. Matthew did a pretty good job at editing and producing the audio file for a podcast. Sure, we might suggest moving from their current setup (Garageband or Audacity software) to a professional solution which would offer slightly better sound quality (such as Pro Tools or Logic), but they currently have the tools to produce something that sounds pretty darn good. So let’s move onto their delivery method.

The St. Matthew podcast uses a program called Feeder to create its podcast feed once the audio file is on the server. Feeder is a stand-alone program which creates an XML podcast-feed file and puts it onto a Web server. This works fine, but it could be much more integrated into the rest of the church’s Web identity and process.

These days, there’s no reason your podcast feed shouldn’t be directly integrated into your church Web site. Rather than using a stand-alone program to create a podcast feed, you should let your Web site – or even a blog site – do all the heavy lifting for you. Many churches these days are running Web sites based on content-management systems (CMS). These sites deliver interactive content, such as blogs or podcasts, as part of their functionality. Many CMS packages (such as Drupal or Joomla) create RSS feeds, which are essentially podcast feeds, right out of the box. It’s as easy as enabling a Web site plug-in and uploading your audio file. The site does the rest for you. If your church uses a CMS, ask your Web guy about setting up a podcast feed.

What if your church’s Web site isn’t a CMS? Luckily, there are other easy ways to set up a Web-based RSS feed – and they’re free! Many people have blogs already on sites such as blogger.com or wordpress.com. These sites offer a free account to anyone who wants to blog; and, lucky for you, those blogs offer RSS feeds. This means that creating a podcast episode is as simple as writing a blog entry. Here’s how you do it:

First, sign up for a blog account. Then, upload your podcast audio file to your Web server and remember the address where that file exists (such as: http://www.mychurchname.com/audio/podcastfile.mp3). Now, simply write a blog entry and include a link to this audio file at the end of the entry. Then publish the blog. At this point, take note of what your blog’s feed address is (find out how in the blog’s FAQ). Now, jump over to feedburner.com and sign up for an account. Feedburner is a Web site that offers all kinds of free, podcast-related services. Part of their service is to turn blog entries like the one you just wrote into podcast feeds. All you need to do is tell Feedburner what your blog’s feed address is (again, see the FAQ). Then, under the “optimize” tab, enable the “Smart Cast” option.

With the above steps completed, all you’ll have to do is give people your feedburner feed address (not your blog feed address), and you’ve created your podcast. From this point on, posting a new episode is as easy as posting a blog entry and linking to your audio file.

Raising the Bar

Technology continues its march forward. More and more Web-based technologies are evolving that allow churches to spread the gospel and follow the Great Commission in brand-new and exciting ways. Our churches need to remain relevant in this media-driven culture and we need to keep pushing ourselves to the excellence that God asks of us.

Sure, podcasting seems like it’s just putting our sermon audio on the Internet; but it’s much more than that. It’s a door that has opened our ministries to the world. A high-quality, reliable weekly podcast from your church may just be the spiritual food that many crave. Let’s just do our best not to let the quality of our podcast episodes give them aural indigestion.

Bob Christenson is the owner of Mustardseed Media Inc. (www.mustardseedmedia.com), a company designing media and Web sites for tomorrow's Christian ministries. He is also the co-host of the weekly Christian technology podcast, Geeks & God (www.geeksandgod.com).